The cheap Honor 7A and 7C keep the headphone jack and get rid of the notch

One of the strange twists of the 2018 smartphone market is that the phones that most Android fans want – those that with a headphone jack and without a Notch on the screen – they are easier to find among budget models than premium offers. Today's Honor announcement is a perfect example: the 5.7A Honor 7A and the 6C Honor 7C offer 18: 9 screens with reasonably sized bezels and no notches to spoil the view, plus they retain the 3.5mm audio jack that most expensive phones seem to be allergic to these days.

I have these two phones in my hands before today's presentation. With a price of £ 139.99 (approximately $ 200) in the United Kingdom, the Honor 7A asks you to accept many commitments. Its screen is not particularly bright or vibrant, and its resolution of 1440 x 720 is not sharp enough either. The biggest limitation of this phone could be the entry level of 16 GB of onboard storage allied to 2 GB of RAM, although Honor includes a neat 3-in-1 card slot, with room for two nano SIM cards and a microSD card. up to 256 GB – that allows expansion. A 32GB variant will also be available. The 7A is powered by a Snapdragon 430 chip, has a 3,000 mAh battery and comes with Android 8.0 and EMUI 8 preloaded. It offers facial unlocking and a fingerprint reader on the back for biometric authentication.

The Honor 7C is a bit more expensive at £ 169.99 (around $ 240), but it gets an upgrade to a metal backing (instead of plastic) and add a second camera in the back. Both new phones have a main sensor of 13 megapixels, and the 7C adds a secondary 2 megapixel sensor to detect depth and generate artificial bokeh. On the front, both have 8-megapixel selfie cameras. The battery is the same as in Honor 7A, 3,000mAh, and so is the thickness in 7.8 mm. There are no differences in software or biometric options, either with facial unlocking and a fingerprint scanner on this device.

Honor 7A (left) and 7C

The 7C rises to a Snapdragon 450 with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage by default, while also providing the option of a 3-in-1 card slot or an updated model of 64 GB. I can not say that I was impressed with either phone, since the Honor 7A shows a noticeable delay in basic operations, but the 7C feels substantially more modern thanks to its superior materials and processors. It is a little faster and softer and much more pleasant to hold in your hand.

As much as I would like to celebrate these two phones for sticking to tried and true designs, I find them somewhat retrograde in the corners they cut. In addition to having disappointing displays and performance, they also come with MicroUSB ports instead of USB-C, which no longer find an excusable compromise. Honor has not yet confirmed the details of the European and US version. UU., But both phones will be available through Hihonor.com, and the Honor 7A will also be widely distributed through the usual retail channels in the United Kingdom.